Method of loci

There&#x27;s an active memory-improvement community at <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;artofmemory.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;artofmemory.com</a> including forums and a wiki of techniques.<p>Why bother? Because these techniques increase the capacity of &quot;cache&quot; that is closer (low latency) to human &quot;computation&quot;. This can lead to faster traversal of the OODA loop, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;OODA_loop" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;OODA_loop</a>, which is relevant to lean startups, business competition, combat and more.<p>See the HN thread on AI as an enabler of IA, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10373180" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10373180</a><p>In addition, spaced-repetition techniques can be used to increase your vocabulary, which is like gaining extra pixels for the expression of nuanced goals, helping any compass which guides execution to a goal. Words are proxies for dreams and dangers, especially in a software-constructed world. Greater word capacity becomes greater visibility over a software-based terrain.

Very very cool! Interested? Read &#x27;Moonwalking with Einstein&#x27;<p>I recall being surprised (the whole class) by a surprise test for some people who wanted to study us. We had 5 minutes to memorize 50 random words. I just read Moonwalking with Einstein so I learned how to use loci. The average that people could recall (N=25) was around 20 words. I was able to recall 49! 49! That&#x27;s almost perfect! I was pretty fucking baffled. I still know most of them ...<p>A JAMAICAN person jumped off a RAMP on the TITANIC and then flew in to SPACE on the ISS where he saw a DOG which was playing the VIOLIN which then bit TESLA, GHANDI was playing CHESS and then the iss crashed down into MILAN which was covered in a huge OMELET, we flew over mount FUJI and ... etc<p>Bolded words are words that were on the list. It&#x27;s pretty awesome for hardcore memorization!

There is a great TED talk about this: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ted.com&#x2F;talks&#x2F;joshua_foer_feats_of_memory_anyone_can_do" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ted.com&#x2F;talks&#x2F;joshua_foer_feats_of_memory_anyone_...</a>

This came to my attention while reading the essays collected in Tony Judt&#x27;s book <i>The Memory Chalet</i> (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nybooks.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;archives&#x2F;2011&#x2F;feb&#x2F;10&#x2F;tony-judt-distinctions&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nybooks.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;archives&#x2F;2011&#x2F;feb&#x2F;10&#x2F;tony-ju...</a>). From the review:<p>&quot;Physically unable to write [because of ALS], but with a mind as sharp and active as ever, [Judt] plotted the twenty-five short essays that compose this book in his head, while he was alone at night, using a mnemonic device taken from accounts of the early modern “memory palace,” whereby elements of a narrative are associated with points in a visually remembered space; but instead of a palace, he used a small Swiss chalet that he had once stayed in on vacation as a boy, and that he could picture vividly and in detail. He was then able to dictate these feuilletons the next day from the resulting structure.&quot;

I took the Jonathan Levi Superlearner course on Udemy about a year ago and the Loci method is a key part of this course.<p>I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in this topic.<p>I can say that it&#x27;s extremely useful for remembering lists of things, but I haven&#x27;t had a lot of success in using it to retain or organize abstract information.

About halfway during an Introduction to Psychology exam in college (and this was told to the class ahead of time), the professor told us to close our exam booklets and listen to a list of 20 things, having the class using the Method of loci to remember them. Afterwards, students had to write it down the list <i>in order</i> in their test booklet. The question was worth as many points, with <i>any</i> out-of-order mistake forfeiting the rest of the points for the list.<p>Somehow, I managed to get everything correct.

I&#x27;m really curious about building a virtual memory palace for VR. Seems there would be many possibilities to make memorizing more effective.<p>Some common techniques like following a predetermined path through a palace and imagining diffrent unique objects and scenes at fixed locations along that path could be really nicely visualized.<p>I would think you could benefit a lot from actually beeing able to explore and fully take in a memory palace while feeling like you&#x27;re actually present with VR.

Are most people able to just &quot;picture a room&quot; as required by this technique? I&#x27;ve never been good at that. Whenever I try to picture a location, I just see objects and landmarks with no real sense of place, kind of just floating in an impressionistic aether.

People who watch BBC Sherlock should be familiarized with it :)

There are a lot of methods that was developed by Harry Lorayne. I recommend to read some of his books (The Memory Book).